Anglican minister and philanthropist Thomas Bray devoted himself to the cause of educating and proselytizing blacks and Indians in British America. In 1724, a group calling themselves the Associates of Read more…
Quakers showed deep philanthropic conviction from their earliest days in America. They gave generously of both money and time to scores of causes—building schools, aiding the sick, donating to the Read more…
Even in the hungriest countries, fear of landmines left behind after nasty guerrilla conflicts causes much valuable farmland to be abandoned, just because the acreage cannot be cleared of hidden Read more…
The war that created America depended heavily on private action and philanthropy. In present terms, it cost billions of dollars to equip Washington’s Continental Army, arm our new Navy, and Read more…
In the late 1700s, when the newborn U.S. was exchanging blows with Barbary pirates and fighting repeated engagements against revolutionary France, private donors joined together to build fighting ships for Read more…
When the War of 1812 broke out, the U.S. Navy possessed a total of seven frigates and less than a dozen other seagoing ships. The British Navy at that same Read more…
George Fabyan was a classic entrepreneurial philanthropist—curious, quirky, full of passionate interests, deeply respectful of inventive thinking, distrustful of conventional wisdom and bureaucracy. Fabyan was a great believer in science, Read more…
Raymond Orteig was a French immigrant to New York City who started as a hotel porter at age 12 and worked his way up to owning hotels. Impressed by the Read more…
Nicholas Pritzker came to America from Russia in 1881 at the age of 10. He taught himself English, got a law degree, and went into business. His sons built on Read more…
In March of 2013, health-care entrepreneur Donald Rubin and his wife, Shelley, donated $500,000 to the Bronx Museum of the Arts to expand and extend its free admission policy. In Read more…
With the aim of encouraging cooperation between school districts and charter schools for the good of local children, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $25 million investment in Read more…
Leslie Wexner lived the immigrant dream. Born in Dayton of Russian parents, he majored in business at Ohio State University. He continued on to law school before deciding business was Read more…
The Finger Lakes Musical Theater Festival, which unfolds during summers in the small city of Auburn in the heart of New York state, is one of the largest musical-theater producing Read more…
Jessie duPont’s foundation, located in Florida, hadn’t devoted much energy to neighboring Alabama until more than 60 tornadoes struck the state on a single day in 2011, killing 248 people Read more…
When Alice Dittman was president of Cornhusker Bank, she often found herself wishing she could give out more loans than she did. Sometimes the business idea looked good, but the Read more…
Dick DeVos is a businessman and former member of the Michigan State Board of Education who is keen to give families choices in the schools their children attend. He is Read more…
Rick DeVos, grandson of the founder of Amway (and son of Dick and Betsy DeVos), wanted to boost the arts in western Michigan. He initially explored the idea of a Read more…
With 288 separate councils operating across the country with a great deal of autonomy, most philanthropic support for the Boy Scouts of America is local support. There have been important Read more…
“Bozeman is the Holy Grail of fly fishing.” So says Tom O’Connor of Warriors and Quiet Waters, a Montana-based charity that takes service-injured veterans on weeklong trips to learn the sport Read more…
The people served by the Rasmuson Foundation are different. Many reside in very small and isolated towns. Transportation is often poor, weather frequently fierce. Because they are thinly scattered across Read more…